Soft Landing - Episode 11 - How to enroll your kids in school and navigating New Zealand school system - Soft Landing

Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
There are over 100,000 people whoimmigrate to New Zealand every year with
the intention to make New Zealand theirhome, leaving behind everything they
know as normal day-to-day life and havingto learn new ways of doing things, new
norms, new cultures, and different values.
There are many people who struggle withthis transition and find it challenging

(00:25):
to adjust and settle so they cancall and make New Zealand their home.
The purpose of this podcast is for meto share my journey and our challenges
with the hope that you can learn from meand my family and have a softer landing.
There will be good days and baddays, but with time, more good days.
I believe we have made theright choice for our family.

(00:47):
I want to try and help you do the same,but hopefully with a softer landing.
This is Soft landing and Iam your host, Brett Colette.
Welcome to this podcast, designed foranyone thinking about preparing for, or
who has just immigrated to New Zealand.
Subscribe now so you never miss an episodedrawing from his personal experience.

(01:09):
This series will guide you throughthe process of preparing for your
move and helping you navigatethe challenges of immigration.
Hello everybody.
so welcome back.
For those that listen to me regularly.
It's nice to have you back and join.
and for those that, haven't listenedbefore, I really encourage you and urge

(01:31):
you, please go back to episode number one.
It's really important that youtry and listen from the beginning.
I do try and give all my podcastsin chronological order, but it's,
not only that, it's also just toget to know me a little bit better.
why would you want to listen tothis person that's on the, another
end of the world in New Zealand?
And my opinion on things with notknowing well, why, listen to me?

(01:52):
So it's really getting to know mea little bit better and my journey
and, why I share what I share.
At the end of the day, it's really justto try and help any immigrant moving
to New Zealand and learn from us.
So that's really why, I do this.
So it's just encouragingyou to go to the beginning.
But, if it's your first time andyou're listening, just welcome.
I'm very excited today.
Today I'm gonna talk a little bitabout, this, about schooling and

(02:12):
getting your kids into school.
I know that it's a hot topic anda lot of questions, and a lot of
people also wonder, when I saypeople that are immigrating to
New Zealand, it's a big thing.
nevermind for yourself and everythingthat you've gotta go through, but
you really think about your children.
It's like, how do I get them into school?
How do they adapt with school?
What are the things I need tomake sure I'm prepared for?

(02:34):
What documentation do I need?
What are the costs around?
There's so many questions around schoolingand your children and getting them
into school, What I wanna do today istalk a little bit about around those.
I'm no expert.
Again, I'm just reminding you, I'msharing from my experience from
our journey, coming to New Zealand.
I'm, as I said, no expert advice.

(02:55):
It's just in our opinion onwhat we've experienced and
hopefully you can learn from us.
So we will get into, and I say we,and I'll explain why I'm saying we is.
We'll get into a little bit of detaillater on in the podcast around specifics.
but I think we'll start off by maybejust sharing a little bit of our
story and our journey with our kids.
So when I say we, it's because my wife isactually joining me on the podcast today.

(03:18):
So I'm roping her in, podcastsand YouTube channels and
everything has been new for me.
And, I've even started getting her todo some content, which I've started
sharing on my YouTube channel.
so now I've even got herinto her first podcast.
So I'll introduce hershortly, and get her just to.
Tell you a little bit aboutherself and her journey.

(03:38):
but we will talkspecifically around the kids.
but, yeah, just, bear with us.
It's not only her first podcastthat she's doing, but it's also
my first interview that I'm doing.
So I'm really using her as a bit ofa Guinea pig, but I do think it's
a very important topic to talk on.
and my wife has been amazing withgetting our kids enrolled and just

(03:59):
really trying to navigate the newway of doing things in a new country.
and it's come with its challenges, whichshe will share, but I think it'll be good
for, her to tell from her perspective.
hey, love, welcome on the podcast.
You can introduce yourselfa little hello world.
just apologies in advance.

(04:19):
with, when you have young kids, they liketo bring their germs home from school.
So I am a bit croaky and a little bitnasal today, so it's not probably my
best podcast voice as my first interview.
But, Hey, and thanks for listening tous and, hope this is a topic that's
valuable to everybody that's listening.
maybe that's the perfect start,is also to tell them love.

(04:40):
I'm sure it's the same back in SouthAfrica and any other country, but
definitely in New Zealand, we'vefound with our daughter who, when
we got here, she was just turningthree and she's turned five.
Now the schools, especially the littleschools, are, a Petri dish full of germs
and they guaranteed to bring it homeand share with the rest of the family.
So that has happened in ourhousehold, as my wife has explained.

(05:00):
I've just got over it.
So I have got a bit of a niggle, andevery now and again I cough, but, I
know she's not at the best health.
My wife either had a bit of asore throat, and my daughter's
just getting over it as well.
maybe that's also another disclaimerwe should just put in place is we
don't have a support structure.
If you've listened to any of myother podcasts, we've explained,
I don't have the luxury ofcalling mom or, meaning my mom.

(05:24):
granny or calling my sister or auntiesor anything to help look after the kids.
So we do have our kids outside.
We are trying to attempt our teenager,who's 13, to look after our five-year-old.
So let's fingers crossed, see how thehead goes, and if it doesn't go well
and we start getting a knock at thedoor or screaming outside the door, we
may need to pause, go sort things out.

(05:45):
So we're gonna try our best to getthrough the next half an hour, 40 minutes,
without an interruption from the children.
So let's see how it goes.
but yes, let's hope we don'tcough too much and we are not too
croaky and we'll get through it.
So maybe love, what you can do is, startexplaining a little bit when we arrived.
a big thing I've said on some of thepodcasts before is we didn't rush
into getting the kids into school.

(06:06):
It wasn't, I know a lot of people arereally determined within the week,
first week, two weeks, whatever.
You've gotta get your kids in school,get them registered, get them going.
It wasn't something that we didwith our son or our daughter.
Maybe it's just start thereand talk about that at all.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
As Brett has mentioned in some of hisprevious podcasts is that we were very

(06:27):
fortunate that we could be in the positionwhere we chose for me not to start
working straight away because it wasimportant for me to make sure that the
family was settled and build the home andfurnish the home and all of that jazz.
And what came with that is also theconscious decision not to enroll our kids
into a school straight away immediately.
with me not working, it meant that Ihad time to be able to look after the

(06:51):
kids, while we tried to settle andfigure out where we wanted them to go
to school first, and, investigate theschools in the area and things like that.
So everybody's got different situationswhere you need to start working as,
you hit the ground kind of thing.
And it's important for you to getyour kids enrolled into school.
But for us, in our scenario, I thinkfor our eldest, he was 11 at the

(07:15):
time, we chose not to enroll him in aschool for the first couple of months.
That time was spent.
if you've listened to the previouspodcast, all of the turmoil and
the chaos and the flooding and theX, Y, Z, we, eventually settled in
an area, based on some of the goodreports that we had on the schools

(07:36):
that we wanted to attend in the area.
And our prize.
One goal for our son at thetime was that we wanted to get
him into a special characterschool in the area that we chose.
And once we had found a rental in the areaand enrolled at the school that we wanted
him to go to, we actually discovered thatthere was quite an extensive waiting list
to get him into that specific school.

(07:57):
So we did the enrollment and everythingto get him in there, but they couldn't
give me a, timeline on how long it wouldtake for him to enter into that school.
So with that in mind, we had to gethim into a school eventually, he
couldn't have too much time off,although he would've loved it.
Gaming permanently.
We then enrolled him in another schoolthat we were zoned for in the area as

(08:18):
part of the state, schooling in our area.
So that being said, he probably onlyentered school three months after we
first arrived, so that gave him somegood downtime to be able to familiarize
himself with the surroundings.
I made sure that I took them withme wherever I went to get them
associated and used to the areas.

(08:39):
Maybe I just wanna add on there,and I know you, I don't wanna use,
lose your train of thought, butjust so people, couple of things.
First thing is.
Just understand when my wife istalking about, what did you call it?
The semi-private school.
You gave it a prospecial character school.
Special character school.
So that was a semi-private schoolthat we were on a waiting list for.
So what Amy's meaning there is we werehoping we could get him in there straight
away, but because the waiting list wasso long and with no guaranteed timeline,

(09:03):
and even when we pushed them to try,give us an estimate, they were saying
it could be anywhere up to 12 months.
We knew we had to gethim into a state school.
So that's what we are meaning bythe two different types of school.
So that's the one thing.
And then the second thingis, I can just share.
I was the first one working andAmy wasn't working with the kids.
I found it awesome to be able to see howAmy was able to go on day trips with them,

(09:27):
even just be to the beach, to the parks,to the museums or anything, even if.
Although it means some of them, Iwasn't going on those trips with them.
It was awesome to see that I'd, itmade me feel good that I'd picked up
my family and literally brought themto the other end of the world, the real
other end of the world, and I could seehow it was and is the right decision.

(09:50):
So she would share with me on WhatsAppand everything while I was at work,
photos, little video clips of everythingthat they've done for the day.
And even, although sometimes youfeel a little bit excluded and it was
like, oh, I wish I could be with them.
It still motivated me a lot tosay, oh, keep pushing forward.
As hard as it is for you, thisis definitely the right thing.
Look at how your kids are thriving.
Look at how they can.

(10:11):
Your family, meaning your, wifeand your, two kids are safe to
go out into the community withoutyou being there to protect them.
And, they were perfectly safe.
Meaning going to the beachesalone, going and walking out on
the streets alone, around theparks alone, it really was awesome.
And that, just gave me a spark.
And I know this is aboutschooling, but I just want to

(10:31):
share a little bit about that.
It, really was cool to know thatthey could spend those few first
few months just integrating andgetting used to the country.
And I know that was a blessingfor us because not everybody can
afford that straight off the bat.
Especially if both parents are working.
You have to put them in school.
I get it.
I'm just telling you our story,our experience, and that's
something that I really enjoyed.
So love.

(10:51):
I just wanted to add thaton because I think it was so
important for somebody else justto understand, especially as a dad.
It made me feel good.
I really loved that, which was awesome.
So anyway, carry on with, ourson yet getting him into school
for the first three months.
You are waiting on that one?
Yep.
Beautiful.
as I mentioned, he was 11 at the time,so not having an understanding of how the

(11:13):
New Zealand schooling system worked, I wasreliant a lot on, information that you can
read online as well as, speaking to thedifferent schools and getting information.
we're going through some of the specificswith regards to, how old, your kids
are when they start in the differentyear levels and things like that.
But our son, he entered school into amiddle school, in the intermediate levels.

(11:37):
He was, year seven when he started andthere was a really good teacher that he
was placed with and they assigned hima buddy when he first started just to
make sure that when he first startedin this brand new school, brand new
location, that he had somebody that wouldshow him around and show him the ropes.
So they were very good.

(11:58):
even being a state school, theywere really good at making sure
that he felt comfortable andsettled and things like that.
Some of the interesting things thathappened over and above a normal
school life, was I think it was threeweeks into him starting the school.
I'm sure you've heard Brett speak aboutsome of the crazy weather events that

(12:19):
we've had where his school is, it'spretty much at sea level and we had a
lot of rain and his school flooded andthe school app that you download on your
phone, so we just had an interruption,so we've had an interruption.
As we said, my daughter has just walkedin, so she's here to ask for something.
So give us a second.

(12:39):
I'm just gonna pause for onesec and then we'll continue.
So I did warn you, I saidthat was gonna happen.
So this is what happens when youdon't have your support structure
and you can't get granny or auntieor somebody to look after them.
And, we did try explain to my5-year-old that it needed to
be something very important.
and she needed to blow her nose, somom had to go help her blow her nose.

(13:02):
for all the parents out there,I'm sure you understand, for
those that aren't parents yet.
This is what you have to look forward to.
I'm telling you, you don't get me wrong.
It's really awesome.
But yes, this is how life goes.
so sorry.
Love.
You can carry on.
I know you were trying to explainwith, our son at school and I know as
we said, it was the first few monthsbefore we got him in school, but when
we got him in school it was three weeksin and then you can carry on from there

(13:24):
three weeks in of him being at school.
So yeah, we had some pretty crazy weatherevents and there was an excessive amount
of rain and basically the school flooded.
it had kneehigh water throughout theschool and the school's method of,
making sure that the kids were evacuatedfrom the school is they send out a
broadcast message on the schooling appthat said, we're closing the school

(13:47):
evacuating, come and fetch your kids.
And they just let the kids go.
And it was really, an interestinglearning curve for us because I know
what they said, when we enrolled atschool, make sure that you've got an
emergency evacuation plan in case thereis an emergency event that your kids know
where to meet you and that kind of thing.
But it just.
It really blew my mind that theyjust let all thousand kids, all

(14:09):
students just left the school andyou had to find them in the chaos.
So couldn't get the car really closeto the school, had to park a mile away.
So I didn't float the car andI had to wade through knee deep
water to go and find my son inthe rain, to try and evacuate him
from the school, which we did.
It wasn't as big a deal.
It didn't turn out to be asbig a deal now in hindsight.

(14:32):
But, three weeks into the brandnew school, the school flooded.
And I think the week before thathe also tripped and he fell.
And he, so within the first coupleof weeks of school, we had a, very
steep learning curve on, how to handleemergency situations and things like that.
So that was our, learning about fire,but it was much smoother after that.

(14:55):
I think another thing that peoplealso just need to remember, we, we
are sharing our experiences, but it'snot the intention to scare anyone off
for Kate, so that don't listen to ourstories and think, oh my goodness.
New Zealand is out.
There's no way I'm doing it.
These people we're nuts.
Okay.
Thank you for the warning.
We're not coming.
no, That's not the intention here.
I think it's more the intention is toshare our experiences so that one, if
there's anything you can learn from us, soyou can do it better than us, please do.

(15:18):
but we're definitely nottrying to sh scare anyone off.
I think this is one of the bestthings we have ever done, most
difficult things we've ever done,but definitely the best things that
we've ever done for our family.
I do not regret it, and I'm sograteful for the opportunity to
be able to move my family here.
please, we're not trying toscare anyone off, but getting
back to the story, come on.

(15:38):
If you listen to our podcasts andeverybody has their immigration story, so
you'll talk to so many different people,but, It just didn't seem to end for the
first six to 12 months of us first beinghere from our first rental being flooded.
and we had to get another rentalbecause, sorry, that one was not
available anymore to only being herea couple of weeks and then a cyclone
hits and going through all of that,which was, a, learning curve in itself.

(16:01):
And like my, wife said my, son falling.
If you listen to one of my podcasts onthe, healthcare system, I, do mention
and talk through it, but, he had to doan a, c claim because he split his lip
or whatever he had to go to emergency.
And then, yes, three weeks in andthen there's a flood in the school.
and trying to look at the positivenow even talking through the flood
at the school, it makes me thinkthat, For us back in South Africa.

(16:24):
YI don't think the schools wouldever say to a thousand scholars
just go free and go home.
But you've gotta remember it's a littledifferent here where the kids are free.
They've got that safety factorwhere it still blows my mind.
And my son, every time I drive intoschool in the morning, he looks
at me and oh dad, enough about it.
I see these littles, it stillblows my mind when I say littles.

(16:46):
I'm meaning if they're like six or sevenyears old, they teeny tiny tots man.
And they're walking to school themselvesor riding on their bicycles themselves,
crossing roads, traffic lights.
it's, amazing.
I guess that's the way the lifeshould be, and it should be the way
the world is, but the kids are free.
So that's why a school wouldsay to the kids, go, home.

(17:06):
Because they know they'll geton their bikes or they'll walk
home or they'll catch a bus.
Yes, catch a bus.
These little east catchbuses all by themselves.
They're just free.
So it does make sense that they do it.
But for us that are used to, you'vegotta protect your kids out in the
big wide world and be there becauseit's just, it's, so dangerous.
it's different.

(17:26):
and I'm not saying every other country'sdangerous, but it's a reality in
South Africa, unfortunately, wherewe have to safeguard your kids.
You have to be there.
You would never let your five, six,7-year-old out on the streets alone
or out in the shopping malls alone.
Parents have to bethere to keep them safe.
It's just the reality.
Whereas here, man, they run,they literally run free.

(17:48):
kids running around the neighborhood,kids riding around on bicycles and
little kids and they're very free.
So it would make sense that after aflood, the best way and the safest way for
them to get the kids home, let them go.
exactly.
If they all had theirevacuation emergency plan.
They would know, go meetmom at the top of that hill.
'cause mom knows, or dad knows,we're gonna pick you up there.

(18:09):
So run to the top of that hill.
'cause the, and I'm really nottrying to scare you with the weather.
They do have tsunami warningwarnings here and drills here.
and they test the tsunami sirensand all the rest of it as well.
So the kids know if there's a tsunamiwarning, they know, tsunami warning
where to run to the highest point.
So I think they're a littlebit more prepared around those

(18:30):
natural disaster type things.
It seems to be normal for them.
So for us that it's not normal.
We've got different worries, notnecessarily the weather that's
been such a different thing, butit's what we've had to learn.
now that we've been here awhile, it's like the norm man.
but I think in the beginning,especially in those first few
months where it was just thing afterthing, we were like, oh my goodness,

(18:50):
what's going on with this weather?
It's nuts, man.
yeah.
Yeah.
That being said, I thinkwe arrived where there was.
Crazy weather events, that's not the norm.
So it's, it has calmeddown a lot since then.
Yeah.
And people also have questionsabout things like earthquakes
and things like that.
Oh, yeah.
Where we are up in Auckland, we've neverfelt anything they call New Zealand
the Shaky Isles or something like that.

(19:12):
We've never felt anything.
Not to say that it doesn't happen.
But we've never felt anything butthe New Zealand civil defense and
that kind of thing, they're regularlytesting their tsunami, warning
siren alerts and things like that.
So it is just something, justto be mindful of we are not used
to it coming from South Africa.
Yeah.
Where we come from.
So it's just something to be prepared for.
It's not, for u to be panicky about it.

(19:34):
No.
But it's more just to make surethat you're enabled, to make sure
you've got those plans in place.
Yeah.
Should worst case scenario happen.
Yeah.
Look at the positives.
They actually plan, they actually havea plan for when these things happen.
And even, I promise you, oh, and Iknow this is not the podcast about it.
Yeah.
No, let not go down a rabbit hole.
We digress a lot.
But, yeah, it is just funny fora foreigner and an immigrant,

(19:56):
it is different for us.
So yes, you picked up our son fromschool wading through Kneehigh Water.
That must have been fun.
Yeah, he loved it.
He, it was a bit, Nerve wrackinginitially, but that meant that the
school was closed for a couple of days.
Oh yeah.
'cause it had to dry out.
so he was all gameful not having to go toschool and for my pre-teen or teen now,
'cause now we're two and a half yearsin, if he could miss school, he's happy.

(20:19):
Very happy.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
Then our littlest, who's now five,she had just turned three at the time.
I only enrolled her into a ECEcenter, which stands for Early
Childhood Education Center.
I only enrolled her,I think it was August.
So it was probably the end of the year,probably seven months after we arrived.
in hindsight, I probably shouldhave waited until spring to do that

(20:41):
because I think also within the firstcouple of weeks of enrolling her
there, she picked up, a flu virus.
And, that was interesting.
She then gave it to me and it was,pretty chaotic around that time.
A lot.
Sherry is caring.
That's how it works.
But, yeah, that's what we chose to do.
didn't enroll them straightaway, as I mentioned.

(21:02):
And it worked well for us.
If anything has just shown us howincredibly resilient our kids are.
They've integrated really well,not without as challenges.
we are all learning a new way ofdoing things, but, you go through
that steep learning curve and you putyour head down and you get it done.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Look, I think there was a Amy's broughton a thing now is just, I keep reiterating

(21:27):
it, but, we're talking from ourexperience and this is what worked for us.
And what was so nice is we had thatblessing of not having to rush into it.
And I think there'sdefinitely benefits to that.
But I do understand if youhave to, because you're both
working, yeah, that's fine.
But I think what's, what's importantto maybe just take out of this is
you're gonna have those challenges.
You just gotta stick by eachother, get through it, and
the kids are really resilient.

(21:48):
they're amazing.
okay, so let me, carry on with theinterview love and, I know you've
shared a little bit about our firstcouple of months of being here and
getting our son into school and gettingour daughter into school, being both,
middle school or, kindy, at that stage.
But maybe you can now explaina little bit more detail.

(22:08):
And this is where my wife is so muchbetter than I, because she did this, is
she'll explain to you a little bit aboutthe actual wording for the different
types of schooling and the differentlevels and all that kind of stuff.
So I'm gonna hand over to you on thatone because this is where it blew my mind
because I'm still, I'm in my middle agenow and I go back to my South African
days and I still sometimes talk standards.

(22:28):
And my wife said to me,geez, that's really old.
Nevermind grades.
okay.
So it's very, now all ofthat is nu null and void.
It's all now total new terminologyand everything like that for me.
So it blows my mind.
So I'll let you explain it a bit better.
All right.
So again, just a disclaimer,I'm not an education specialist.
I'm not a teacher.

(22:49):
I'm only providing some of the learningsfrom my own personal experience.
So if there is a need for aproper interview with a teacher
or something like that Yeah, mightI, maybe you can set something up.
But these are just somehigh level guidelines and
information that I've shared.
But that being said, there'sa lot of information online.
but let's work through some ofthe core points that I thought

(23:10):
was, important or important to us.
and just a bit of an understandingof how the schooling system
works here in New Zealand.
Alright, so first off, schoolingis compulsory for children
from the ages of six to 16.
Alright, so there are some kids here that.
They reach 16 and they chooseto leave school at that time,

(23:31):
or they can continue to the endof schooling, which is obviously
what we would prefer for our kids.
But not to say that it's notimpossible for, children who have
left, school at the age of 16 notto find work and that kind of thing.
There's still lots ofopportunity here, but, compulsory
schooling is from age 60 16.
I'll add in on that one.
Love.
So just when they say they can leave at16, so what they generally do is some kids

(23:54):
at the age of 16, instead of going andfurthering their, schooling to get what
we would call like a metric, getting that.
That final year of schooling ona, theoretical side of things,
they can go and look into a trade.
So they can go and rather startpotentially skilling up as becoming,
I don't know, maybe they wannabecome a plumber or they wanna become

(24:15):
an IT engineer or whatever else.
So they can study further, but fromthe age of 16 into a specific area
that they want to, so they didn't needto get their final year of schooling,
year 13 or whatever it is to be ableto go to a university to start studying
to become a doctor, for example.
So they could go that other route.
they, they recognize that, and there'sa path for people, and kids to go that

(24:39):
way, which I, find actually really cool.
Yeah.
Alright.
Then primary and secondary education,it's available for children anywhere
from the ages of five to 19.
So children will typically start yearone when they are five, turning six.
Unlike in South Africa wherechildren typically started when
they were six, turning seven.
And there is, Coverageuntil children turn 19.

(25:04):
Yeah.
so it's quite, it covers for everybody,it's quite, open for everybody.
And, I will go through some of thedifferent classifications of, Where
you start in ECE, early childhood.
Yeah.
Education, primary school, middle school,senior school, and all of that jazz.
But, those coming across withlittle kids, probably ECE

(25:27):
would be a good place to start.
Before you start with the ECELove, just one thing, I, sorry.
And I know I'm interrupting youagain, and people have been Jesus
husband that keeps interrupting.
maybe they'll relate.
I don't know.
But where you were talking about theages of five to 19 and kids that come
into school, especially the little Eastwhen they're five, back from where we
are in South Africa, and I can only talkfrom a South African perspective, is

(25:49):
your kids would usually start actuallyat the age of six, and it would be at
the beginning of the calendar year.
So what you would do is you enrollyour kids in what we called grade one
from the age of six, from that January.
Okay.
Where?
Yeah, I'm getting there.
Oh, you're getting there.
Okay.
So my wife is gonna explain this to you.
It's just their enrollmentworks differently here.
sorry.
LI should know the professional knows it.
Sorry, my baby.
No, all good.
All right.

(26:09):
When I get to primaryschool, I will touch on that.
All right.
So e, c, e for the lilies.
ECE, it's not compulsory, but it's widelyattended in preparation for school.
especially when the kids arenearing that age, of five.
The ECE centers will start helpingthem with basic academic stuff,

(26:30):
reading, writing, listening tosounds and things like that.
But basically ECE caters for children'sbetween the age of three and five,
and you can receive up to 20 hoursper week free of ECE childcare.
So you would enroll at an ECE centerand if they are, funded by the

(26:54):
Ministry of Education, they willreceive, money for you to attend that
school for up to 20 hours per week.
Now for us, in our personal scenario,we didn't have extra funding available.
'cause as we explained, we wereworking on one salary for a while.
We chose, once we had enrolled, ourdaughter into that ECE center to have

(27:15):
her enrolled Monday to Friday formornings only for three or four hours
per day, which made up the 20 hours.
If you stay for full day,you then are charged a fee
over and above that 20 hours.
So the 20 hours will be deducted fromyour weekly fee and then you pay for that.
Now I can't, I don't wanna give youhow much it costs because it very much

(27:37):
depends on the ECE center that you join.
You'd have to get, pricing fromthem on their pricing structure and
availability and all that thing.
But all I can tell youis it is quite expensive.
I think of, some of the schools that wehad investigated for our daughter at the
time, less the 20 hours of ECE per week.
I think it was up to $200 per week.

(27:59):
Yeah.
which, it all adds upat the end of the day.
again, luckily we were in a situationat the time where I wasn't working
straight away, but once I did startworking, I was very luckily able to
land a job where one of us was workingremotely from home most of the time.
So she would go for the morning and thenone of us would pick her up and then she
would, stay at home with the parent thatis working, entertaining herself, watching

(28:23):
a tablet, watching tv, playing games,building Lego, whatever the case may be.
Just before you go onto to thenext one, just so we're clear
on ECE, that's kindie, right?
it is kindie, but they aredifferent categorizations of ECE
versus kindie where kindie mightcover other things over and above.
What a, what an ECE would.
Okay.
I'm not gonna go into kindie 'causeI don't have any experience on it.

(28:45):
Okay.
but early childhoodeducation, they care for them.
They teach them, they sing songswith them, they draw with them, color
with them, lift them, play outside.
They've got amazing facilities for kids.
So it's like nursery schoolsand pits and things like that.
Yeah, it's a preschool basically.
All right.
I do know 'cause there'sgonna be the question of kids

(29:05):
that are younger than three.
I don't have any experience on that, butI do know from what I've seen on Google
and things like that when you researchis that younger children can receive some
support through other funding streams likefunding subsidies and things like that.
But it has to be throughlicensed ECE services.
But again, we'd need to be investigatedfor your specific situation.
I can't speak to those 'cause I don't havea was younger than it's, and you'd also

(29:29):
have to look at your visas and what visasyou're on and whether you qualify or not.
I don't know.
So we don't have that information.
So that would be a toughone for us to answer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I suppose there are options.
There must be options.
Yeah.
Look, there are pairs and there arepeople that will look after your
kids and daycares and everything.
They are available.
It's just whether you canafford it budget wise.
So you just need to doyour homework on that one.
So it's not like there's no options.

(29:50):
They definitely are options.
You just gotta see what wouldwork with you budget wise.
Yeah.
And what you qualify for.
Yeah.
Alright.
Then leaning on to primary school.
So primary school is fromyear one to year six.
So they don't talk about grades like backin South Africa they talk about years.
So year one is when your little east willstart, anytime from their fifth birthday.

(30:12):
And what Brett was alluding toearlier is that the kids don't
start on the calendar year.
So if your child is turning fiveto six in that year, they don't
all start in January of that year.
So if your child has turned five inMarch, you can, anytime from the time
they turn five up until the sixthbirthday, you can enroll them in school.
for example, our little one, she turned,five, I think it was March ish, and

(30:37):
we chose for about two months later,we, enrolled her into primary school.
So it all depends on their development.
If you think that they're ready,To enter into school, which we
were comfortable with, so that'show the primary school works.
Then a primary school will go up to yearsix and year six is typically when the

(30:57):
kids are between 10 and 11 years old.
Alright.
Then the next level up would be middleschool, and that is generally four.
The years seven to 10, where thekids start between the ages of 11
and 12 and then they finish year10 at around 15 years old when
you are in year seven and eight.

(31:17):
It's also referred to sometimes asan intermediate school, the kids
will transition from primary schoolto an intermediate school with some
specialist teaching, and it includes ablend of primary and secondary school
approaches as they transition towardsgetting pre prepared for senior school.
Then years nine and 10 are thefinal two years of middle school,
and it was also sometimes referredto as junior secondary schools.

(31:40):
And this is for kids agedbetween around 13 to 14 years
old, depending on your area.
You can have middle school separatefrom high school or senior schools,
but in our case, the middle school andthe senior school are on one campus.
It's quite a big school.
But the two campuses, the onecampus is separated by a driveway in
between where you have the, middleschool kids on the one side of the

(32:00):
driveway and you've got the seniorschool kids on the other side of the
driveway and then all allowed acrossthe driveway, to keep them separate.
So it's more important just to understandbetween primary, middle, et cetera,
so that you can look for when I'massuming your zoning and what schools
in the area are up to what levels.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's it.
All right.
Then onto senior schools.
They're also sometimes referred toas high schools or colleges when

(32:22):
you're doing your research, it'sfor kids from the years 11 to 13.
So 13 would be your equivalentof a metric, where the kids are
generally within the ages of 15 to 18.
So that's the senior school where childrenwill work towards what they call the NCEA.
So the National Certificate of EducationalAchievement is the main qualification for

(32:44):
secondary school students in New Zealand.
Okay.
So the NCEA, I dunno too much about it'cause I don't have any kids doing NCEA
at the moment, but it works high level.
It works on a system of credits that needto be gained in your various subjects
and at levels from level one to three.
Alright, so again, there's a lot ofinformation online about NCEA, but
NCEA is only applicable for seniorschool to students from years 11 to 13.

(33:09):
In our experience with our son, the.
Pressure on the tertiary, oh, nottertiary, on the secondary education is
not as pressurized as what we had backin South Africa, back in South Africa.
Our son was enrolled in aprivate school at the time.
He has done amazingly well, butI don't find it as pressurized.

(33:30):
they don't have strict cycle testsevery Friday and things like that.
it's been a lot more relaxed andI think the, personally, the scope
of learning has been a little bitbroader, to make sure that they master
something that they're working onbefore they move on to the next, yeah.
Topic.
Look, I know it can be a big debateabout the schooling and if it's as good
as back home or not, or private schoolsback home or not, and I'm not gonna

(33:53):
go into that in this podcast today.
That's not, the intention.
I'm not trying to create adebate on what's better or not.
It's more just trying to share practicalexperience from our point of view.
I, I'm gonna let you carry on.
Maybe just one thing I will do, and Iknow, Amy will probably mention it, I
will share some of the links for the,government education websites as well.
But you've got education.gov nz.

(34:14):
I will share it, under the descriptionas well so that you can get it there if
you wanna do further investigations too.
Sorry, la.
Carry on.
Yep.
All good.
All right.
something that was importantfor me to know was the subjects
that they learn at school.
Yeah.
Is it the same?
Is it different?
So there's core school subjects orwhat they call foundational subjects,
which would be things like thestandard English, maths, and science.

(34:35):
And then you have additional subjects suchas social science, which would be things
like history, geography, social studies,and you have arts, which would be things
like music, performing arts, or drama.
And art, physical art, likepainting and things like that.
Then you have, physical education,which covers things like fitness
skills development, wellbeing,and health language options.

(34:56):
From our experience, we've had Spanish,Japanese, or Maori, for example.
Then there's, technology, whichis quite cool as well, which they
cover digital literacy, coding.
my son's been exposed to some 3Dprinting and things like that, making
animations, which has been pretty cool.
Then I think once the kids move onto senior school, they will have a

(35:18):
few core subjects that they focus onthat are compulsory, but then they
then choose some elective subjectsover and above, which they will
work on alongside the core subjects.
I think, I stand corrected on the amountof subjects, but I think when you're
in, once you're in senior school, it'ssix subjects, five or six subjects.
And the electives that the childrencan choose can vary depending on the

(35:40):
school and your students' interest.
so this is where they'll startworking on the NCEA levels.
What I found quite interesting isthat there's a lot of focus or a
lot of consideration given to careergoals and pathways for your kids.
So if your child has a specific careerpath in mind, they can choose subjects
that are relevant to that specific field.

(36:02):
for example, they're interested in doingsomething medical one day as a career.
They will focus more on subjectssuch as science, which covers things
like chemistry and physics, or ifthey wanna become a professional
athletics coach, that kind of thing.
They've got, subjects and pathwaysthat would help them to achieve that
as a career goal rather than forcingeverybody to fit into the same box.

(36:22):
obviously the core subject youstill have to do like maths and
English, but you don't have to take.
PE if you're not interested in PEand it's not going to work towards
your medical career, for example.
Any questions on that?
the only thing I was thinking was, whatwas Spark in my head was just a story
about, just an experience when met,my son, joined, the school building on

(36:47):
that freedom that I was talking about isthat, I, know you even said it, is they,
do a lot of, PE or physical ed and hestarted doing running at the school and
how they, set the kids free again, sothey do running around the neighborhood.
Okay.
So the 5K run, a 5K run aroundthe neighborhood in between the

(37:08):
houses and whatever else was, isjust secure enough to do that.
So that also was just, it's awesometo know that they can be that free and
be that safe and actually just let thekids run around the neighborhood of the
school to get, get their kilometers in.
The other thing was also cool,they let them go to the beach.
I, know the teacher did go with, butthe beach is within walking distance.
So they'd walk to the beach for something.

(37:29):
I don't even know what they weredoing on the beach, but they walked
to the beach for something and Matthewwould tell me about, oh goodness.
Sorry.
My son would tell me about goingto, to the beach and being on
the beach, which was, cool.
Yeah, it was, awesome.
me being the typical helicopter parent,'cause I still haven't learned how to.
Let my kids go, yet I still have SouthAfrica safety ingrained into me on the

(37:52):
day that he had the beach visit, I was astalker viewing from afar, checking what
these kids were doing on the beach andthey literally went to go check out the
rocks and look at the CNN ES and the mus.
Is that what they were doing?
Okay.
The things like that on the beach.
yeah, so depending on where theschool is, but yeah, the school, they
went to the beach for the day andI think they do that quite often.

(38:12):
like at the end of term, if it's a nicesunny week or whatever, they will plan
for the last day of term for them to goand have a visit at the beach together.
which is pretty cool.
All right.
choosing a school, you might have heardpeople talking about the decile system.
The decile system has recently been doneaway with, I think in the last two years.

(38:35):
So this is something I hadto do a bit of research on.
'cause when we first arrived, thedecal system was still in place, but
it's been replaced with somethingcalled the equity index, which just
means that the government distributesfunding to different schools and things
like that based on the equity index.
So it estimates the extent to whichyoung people face, socioeconomic

(38:55):
barriers in achieving good education.
The range of the equityindex, it's a number system.
It ranges between 3 44 to 5 69, wherethe higher number indicates a greater
level of socioeconomic disadvantage.
And subsequently, there's morefunding provided to those schools
that have that higher index.
The national average is 463.

(39:18):
But I just make mention it's not a measureof the quality of the school itself.
You could have amazing schoolsthat have really good, systems and
facilities and things like that.
They just might have a highernumber of students that are from
socioeconomic disability or disadvantage.
and it's a rating that's provided bythe government and then they provide

(39:38):
funding to the schools for that.
I dunno if you'd know, but it is justmaking me think, does that maybe give an
indication on the area and the type ofsocioeconomic demographic in the area?
I would imagine?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
So you could use that as a bit ofa, an indicator if you're choosing
a place to rent is looking at that,equity index, of the schooling.

(40:01):
'cause it'll give you an ideaof the demographic in the area.
Yes.
Yep.
Yep.
Okay.
Alright.
And then also in coming to choosinga school, schools or public schools
or state schools as they're known asour zoned for your area, Many people
will research the schools that theywant their kids to attend first,
and they will then settle in an areathat's zoned for that specific school.

(40:24):
The schools have a catchment area, so tospeak, so you as one of your documents
that you'd have to provide when enrollingat a school would be your physical
address, they will double check thatyou are zoned for that specific school.
so that was important for us.
The reason why we chose the area that welive in now is because of the zone for
the public or state schools in the area.

(40:45):
that being said, state schools, in ourexperience, Aus still perfectly fine.
It's not, there isn't such a bigshift in the difference between
private, semi-private and publicschools as there was in South Africa.
The public or state schools hereare still perfectly 100% fine.
I've got no issues with, Thatwe can add on to that just

(41:07):
with our personal experience.
we explained that my son when wegot here, the idea was to have him
go to a semiprivate school thatwe put him on the waiting list
for, and the same for my daughter.
And because we didn't know howlong that wait would be, we
got him into a state school.
So he is in a state school now,and eventually they did get back
to us on that waiting list andsaid there's a slot available.
He went for the interview at thesemi-private school and he was accepted.

(41:29):
But after talking to him, he actuallyasked us and we came to an agreement as
a family that he's not gonna change fromthe state school to the semi-private
even, although he was accepted becausewe've put him through, and this was
our decision because we had alreadydone so much change in his life moving
him from South Africa to here and howit had taken time for him to build
the friendship group and everything.
And doing well in the stateschool he is in now to change

(41:51):
him, to start all over again.
We opted that it was actuallybetter for him to stay where he is.
So that just talks to whatAmy is saying now that.
Even, although you it's, not as biga difference between state education,
education schools versus, semi-private.
That's, in our experience, that'swhat we feel at the moment.
There.
There's different pros and cons andyou could really go through that.

(42:11):
But in our example, that'swhy we've decided to even
keep him at a state school.
And now we've actually got twokids in two separate schools.
'cause my daughter, she went to thekindy that fed into the semi-private
and she's in the semi-private.
So it just shows you, you can use both.
it's really what works for you.
Alright, cool.
Alright.
Then just something I need tonote is that state or public

(42:33):
schools are not completely free.
I know everybody says it's freeschooling, et cetera, et cetera, but
there are some gotchas that you needto be aware of, that you need to
plan for and budget for accordingly.
yes, school fees in the traditionalterm as we knew it back in
South Africa, doesn't apply forNew Zealand or public schools.
So you don't.
you're not charged a monthly school fee.

(42:54):
However, there are costsassociated with subjects or course
costs that your child attends.
stationary, which goes without sayingdigital equipment and online portals and
subscriptions is also a big one 'causea lot of the stuff is done online.
They go very paperless.
of course there's things likeschool uniforms, shoes, school
photos and things like that.

(43:14):
And some schools, or rather mostschools will ask for a donation.
A donation is optional.
It is tax deductible, I think it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
but those donations goes towardsuplifting the school, upgrading their
facilities, contributing to theirrunning costs and things like that.
So any donations that they useis actually used towards positive
upliftment of the school itself.

(43:35):
Private schooling completelydifferent, can be quite expensive.
And then semi-private schooling,which is what we've opted for our
youngest, but purely 'cause itis a, special character school.
They do have the option totypically charge a fee over
and above the course cost.
which we pay for an attendanceor what they call an attendance
due or attendance fee.

(43:56):
Maybe just to add, I can't remember if youactually did mention it, but we're talking
about the Chromebook, which was cost.
So they go very digital.
I think just keeping that in mind, fromwhat we used to, maybe it's also just
over the years, maybe even South Africa'scatching up and they're doing stuff more
digitally online, but you had to saveup for that Chromebook and a Chromebook
can cost you anywhere up to $400 andthat's in what, I dunno, that was two

(44:19):
years ago or whenever we bought it.
So it is quite a fee that you just gottakeep Oh, you're gonna talk to that?
Okay, cool.
So it is just keeping in mindsome of those costs as well.
So as cool as it is that they're goingmore digital and they're getting online,
there is fees that you gotta think about.
It's not all free as per se.
All right.
So again, in our personal experience,I can't speak to, the upper years

(44:42):
in primary school, what kindof equipment they would need.
They may use iPads or somethinglike that in the upper levels in
the, primary school, but from middleschool and up, they work on devices.
There's less papers, soyou have to budget for.
A Chromebook or something likethat has a battery that can last
up to a full six hour school day.
So some schools will have refurbisheddevices that you can rent from the school?

(45:08):
Yeah.
Okay.
we chose to buy ours outright, andChromebooks and things like that.
The school will provide you with alist of what their, specifications,
device specifications are.
So what you need to buy.
So we got our son of LenovoChromebooks, got an amazing battery.
It's got like a Google operating systemon it, and then the school will post
all of the work and homework and ifthere is homework, things like that onto

(45:32):
Google Classroom and things like that.
But all schools have differentplatforms and things that they use.
This is just in our experience.
The higher grades, depending on thesubject choices, they may ask that
once the kids reach level, year 10or year 11, if they take something,
for example, digital technology wherethey have to do a lot of coding, where
something might be, resource intensivefrom a computer perspective, they may

(45:54):
then ask them to upgrade to a laptop.
But again, your school willhave to guide you on that.
But just keep that in mind.
Everyone is not workingon paper these days.
A lot of the stuff is online or app based.
All right.
Other things just to keep in mind,school uniforms, they can be expensive.
As an example, I bought two polo orgolf shirts for my son this week.
It was $84 for two shirts I boughtone skirt for my daughter was $70.

(46:19):
So if you're buying brandnew, they can be expensive.
But that being said, they are op shopsor charity shops or secondhand shops that
are available that do stock secondhandschool uniforms and things like that.
But you need to look around Andthen just keep in mind, please
budget upfront for the uniforms.
it's a nightmare with the wetweather and stuff like that to
try and manage with one set.
Yeah.
of school uniform, betweenwashing and that kind of thing.

(46:41):
So then sometimes the school willalso request that you have a PE shirt
and PE shorts and things like that.
So it's just something to keepin mind that you need to pay
upfront for the school uniforms.
It can be quite costly.
something else that I just wanted torecommend was, especially in winter where
we are, it's very wet in New Zealand.
So I found, school shoes withrelated regarding school shoes.

(47:04):
Each school has differentschool shoe requirements.
We found that with my son'sschool, it's more casual.
They're allowed to wear.
Sneakers for example, withno logos and things on that.
But I made the mistake when I firstbought him shoes that they were
fabric shoes and it rained a lotand his feet were constantly wet.
So get them or invest in a good leatherschool shoe when you start something

(47:24):
that's a little bit more weatherproofwill help keep your kids feet stay dry.
Yeah.
In the wet, it's no jokeabout the wet weather.
I can tell you we're sitting hereright now looking out the window
and it is raining, as we speak.
so it, the weather, it doesrain not putting you off.
You still get sunshine.
So don't let them think you don't.
And it still gets warm here,but you do get that wet weather.
So the kids need somethingthat can keep the feet dry.

(47:47):
That said Matthew, ah, done that again.
But we joke, I was tryingnot to say my kids' names.
Okay.
We're trying to keep it outta here,obviously being on social media, so
I'm clearly failing at that part.
But anyway, I'll try to do better.
Okay.
I was okay with my name and wife'strying to keep the kids out of it.
So my son, when he actually,goes to school as well, we're

(48:07):
talking about going to the beach.
The one time they went to the beach,you said he walked any school shoes
through the actual surf, through,the waves, through the, little
river that was feeding into the, seaand everything like that as well.
So they don't, I dunno why they didn'ttake their shoes off, but they just
walk in that, and destroy their shoes.

(48:28):
I don't know.
It's just different.
But it is what they did.
So I forgot about that.
Yeah, I was just thinking, oh my goodness,boy, why didn't you take your shoes off?
What the heck?
Anyway, all right.
Just conscious of time.
I've got one or two morepoints still to go through.
No, go for it.
We're good.
We're good.
Go for it.
Alright.
learning support or special educationfor kids with special needs or
disabilities, is available and thereis funding options available for it.

(48:51):
I can't talk to the specifics 'causeI don't have experience in it.
It would need to be discussed with theapplicable schools you're interested
in, but basically from our experience.
Any kids that have any specialneeds or disabilities, blindness
or whatever the case may be?
Oh yeah.
They integrate into mainstream schools.
They do not have separate schools.
for children that need additional support.

(49:12):
So there's funding options available thatmay be an extra teacher, a teacher's aide,
extra teacher time help from specialists,special equipment, yeah's fantastic.
Or whatever the case may be.
But our experience is that thesekids enter mainstream school.
I think my son at the moment in hisEnglish class, he has a child that
is blind and they make sure that he'sgot access to braille and he's got

(49:34):
an aide that will help him to read.
that's amazing.
The things and that kind of thing.
So just something to note that again, youwould contact the specific schools that
you're interested in the area to see whatfacilities that they do have available.
but there is definitely learning supportfor special education needs, such as
noting that and then something else, whichmight be applicable to some of Afrikaan.

(49:57):
Or any other language.
Yeah, it could be any other language.
Yeah.
There's something called eol, which isEnglish for speakers of other languages.
So these children would integrate intomainstream schools again, but they have
programs where they focus on providingEnglish language instruction to students
whose first language is not English.
So they're aiming to help them developnecessary English skills to succeed in

(50:21):
their education, their targeted programs.
And some of the schools canreceive funding for EOL from
the Ministry of Education.
So if English is not your firstlanguage, reach out to the schools
you are interested in enrolling at andask what EOL programs that have Yeah.
Available.
Yeah.
No, awesome.
Love.
so yeah, besides my, two mistakes of,of dropping my son's name twice, is

(50:43):
there anything else you wanted to share?
yeah, Okay.
Go.
All right.
So there are online learning options.
Yeah.
I'm not gonna cover all of that today.
The New Zealand Ministry ofEducation website has a lot of
information and resource resourcesabout it for you to research.
Yeah.
But they are onlinelearning options available.
Okay.
Online schools.
and then just something else that I wantedto note just with regards to enroll.

(51:06):
Mostly everything is digital.
So you need to make sure that you've gotdigital copies of all your documents.
So if you're registering or enrolling at aschool for a specific zone, they ask you,
gonna ask you for a proof of residence,which could be a bill or something.
Yeah.
Electricity bill or something like that.
So you've got a proof ofresidence, copies of your visas,
passports And things like that.
just make sure you've got digitalcopies of all of that 'cause that'll

(51:26):
form part of your enrollment packthat you typically do online.
something else that wasn't on my listthat I just wanted to mention is a
lot of the schools are app based.
So for an example, we've got two kidsin two completely separate schools.
I've got two separate apps forthem where you report absences,
you can check their timetables.
You can check, their attendance,their reports, and all of that is

(51:46):
all app based and online based.
Yeah.
I've actually found thatvery cool with my daughter.
So I've got access to theapp and they'll even share.
Photos and what they'vedone and give you updates.
So as a parent working, you get anotification via email, you quickly log
in and you can go see what they've beenup to, what they've done, what's going on.
It's actually so cool.
it's not just with the schooling, with theapps, just so you know, in New Zealand,

(52:08):
one thing I've found is they very muchpaperless online apps do it yourself.
DIY They really drive that home a lot.
it's important to make sureyou can get online and function
with laptops or apps and all therest of it have internet access.
it's gonna be important.
Yeah, a hundred percent.

(52:29):
And then probably just to end offwith, I think you were gonna ask
me three questions or somethinglike that just to wrap up.
See, but before, before you goonto that, just to reiterate the
freedom here, I think Brett hasmentioned it a few times, is that.
We are fortunately in an area wheremy son's school is pretty close to the
beach, as we mentioned, and they'reable to go and have beach days for pe.

(52:51):
They have the five kilometer or twokilometer run where they literally
need to run around the estuary.
They're free.
so me, it's ingrained in me.
I will probably forever be a helicopterparent, but the kids are free.
They get on the bus, theywalk across the street.
They, it's like how we used to thinkof how our parents used to grow up

(53:12):
to say, I used to walk through fivemeters of slow snow with my one
pair of good shoes kind of thing.
But that's literallywhat the kids do here.
Yeah.
They're very free.
It's, so awesome.
I've seen it.
I, even catch the bus, into CBDsometimes, and I see a lot of the.
The, kids catching the bus to some ofthe schools that are a little bit further
out of our area and stuff like that.
So you see them on the buses.

(53:33):
When I, mentioned that takingmy son to school, I see a
lot of kids catching the bus.
I see a lot of kids walking.
I see a lot of kids on those pushscooters, electric scooters, bicycles.
they're very free.
so it's awesome.
It really, is.
Awesome.
No, I'll give it to there.
Cool.
I've, so I prepped you well, sothe one thing I was gonna ask is I,
just wanted to try and end off, Ithink this is valuable information.

(53:57):
It really does help.
I know it's not be all and everythingand covers everyth, single topic,
but it's from our experienceand hopefully it helps people.
But if there's three things that youhave to say that are most important in
your mind, in your opinion for peopleto consider or have done, what are
those three top things people need to.
You consider?
Alright, so the first one thatI put down was with regards to

(54:18):
what I mentioned about zones.
make sure that you do research, and ifyou've got friends or family or whoever
in the area that can give their personalaccount on schools and that kind of thing.
Where you choose your children togo to school is very important.
So if you have to choose a slightly lessfancy house to get your family or get

(54:41):
your children into the school that youwant to, that's a important consideration.
obviously you want your kids to be happyat the end of the day if your kids are
really unhappy or you've got them intoa school that's not quite what you
wanted, it's very difficult to, breakyour lease on your rental to move again
and move schools and pay upfront costsfor uniforms and things all over again.

(55:03):
just my 2 cents worth, make surethat you research properly on the
schools that you want so that youcan find a rental in the zone.
Yeah, for that school.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
Yep.
All right.
The second important thing was,just regards to costs and upfront.
Don't be catched or caught out by thefact that the state schools are free.
Yes, they are to a certain extent, butthere are loss of course costs and things

(55:25):
that you need to take into consideration.
So as an example, my son willbe doing food technology in
the second half of the year.
I have to pay $90 for the last sixmonths of the year to cover the food.
and I suppose resources andthings that they're gonna be
using for that specific subject.
Yeah.
So just keep that in mind.
And then there's gonna be thingsthat you're going to want to buy,

(55:46):
like school photographs, classphotographs and things like that.
That might be 30 or $50, but it's.
Something you just need to keep in mind.
School is not completely free.
Yeah.
There are those additional costs,course costs, device costs, online
portals, subscriptions and things likethat you need to take into account.
Yeah.
Geez.
And we've got a kid thatdoesn't do much sports.
I can only imagine for those familieswhere kids do a lot of sport.
Even more costs.

(56:07):
yeah.
And then the third thing I put down,it wasn't specific to schooling per
se, but it was more about making surethat you build on your relationship
and your communication with your kids.
I've tried to have conversations withour teenager now just to make sure that
he knows that mom and dad are his safeplace, even if he does something really

(56:28):
bad and the bottom falls out of his world.
I want him to know that he cancome to mom and dad for anything.
At the end of the day, they are amazing.
They are resilient.
They integrate beautifully for themost part, but stuff does happen in
their world that can affect them.
Just make sure that theyunderstand that you are there.
To be their backstop no matter what.

(56:49):
Yeah.
No matter what they do, even ifthey stuff up that they know that
they can come to you for anything.
Yep.
You have to keep the communicationgoing because the kids here are so
free, a lot of stuff can happen andthen they won't necessarily tell
you about it and then somethingmight happen and then it's too late.
Yeah.
So I don't wanna be the preacher byparenting and that kind of thing, but
what we found, what worked for us,especially with my son going through

(57:09):
the adolescent years, is to make surethat he knows that mom are there.
Mom and dad are therefor him no matter what.
We've got his back no matter what.
Whether it's an issue with ateacher or a student or a friend
or whatever, that they know thatthey can come to you for anything.
Yeah, no thanks LI think thoseare three very important points.
Maybe just to add on, what we willdo is I do plan on doing a separate

(57:31):
podcast talking about bullying.
I know that's another big hot topic.
People worry, they hear that there'sa lot of bullying that happens here.
not only in the work environment, but atschool and how that can affect your kids.
So I do plan on potentially doing aseparate podcast on that, and I have
actually got a friend whose daughterwas bullied and even videoed when it was
being, she was being bullied and stuff.

(57:52):
but that's a separate, podcast altogether.
And again, I don't wantto scare people off.
every country is going tohave its challenges, okay?
So New Zealand is not perfect.
If you think you're gonna comeacross here and it's gonna be
a bed of roses and everything'sgonna be perfect, you're wrong.
There are going to be challenges.
But, a friend that I was chatting toearlier today, he was telling me if

(58:13):
you had to fill two bags, you haveto fill your South African bag or
your previous home country's bag.
With all the issues you have hereand all the issues in New Zealand,
which bag would you choose?
So I'm definitely leaningtowards the New Zealand bag.
it's a lot lighter.
Much lighter bag.
I do not regret being here.
It's one of the bestthings we've ever done.
love, thank you, for doing the interview.

(58:34):
it was cool to have youon my podcast with me.
I really loved it.
And, I hope that you guys learned,something, or there was something
that you can learn from us here.
And that it was a of value.
I really hope so.
If it was, I'll ask you, please share it.
the, whole goal here is to try andhelp as many immigrants as possible,
make New Zealand home and settle asquickly as possible, learn from us.

(58:55):
So if you know of anybody else that'spotentially about to move here or
is Mo just about, has just movedhere, share this podcast with them
please so that they can hopefully.
Learn from us and make ita softer landing for them.
I've also got my YouTube channel.
We over and above my podcast and ussharing our journey and lessons learned
is I'm sharing a whole lot of content onmy YouTube channel, where there, there's

(59:20):
visuals of stuff that I'm sharing.
For example, I've done a full tutorialon the cost of living and how much
it really costs to, to surviveand thrive here in New Zealand.
I share templates, forbudgeting, et cetera.
So there's a lot ofinformation we share on here.
I've even got my wife to startsharing some content on that YouTube
channel around walking around theneighborhood and seeing how safe it

(59:40):
is and what you can do on a Saturdaymorning, which has been really cool.
so go to that YouTube channel.
It's soft landing, nz.
So at Soft Landing nz, please gosubscribe, and turn on your notifications
so when I share more information,you'll get those notifications.
So thanks for joining us today.
I hope you.
You all stay safe and I look forward tohaving you join me on my next episode.

(01:00:04):
Keep well, cheers.
Bye.

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Soft Landing - Episode 11 - How to enroll your kids in school and navigating New Zealand school system

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Soft Landing - Episode 11 - How to enroll your kids in school and navigating New Zealand school system